USA TODAY: GOP must stop Bush

"History lesson: GOP must stop Bush
By Carl Bernstein

USA TODAY

Thirty years ago, a Republican president, facing impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, was forced to resign because of unprecedented crimes he and his aides committed against the Constitution and people of the United States. Ultimately, Richard Nixon left office voluntarily because courageous leaders of the Republican Party put principle above party and acted with heroism in defense of the Constitution and rule of law.

"What did the president know and when did he know it?" a Republican senator — Howard Baker of Tennessee — famously asked of Nixon 30 springtimes ago.

Today, confronted by the graphic horrors of Abu Ghraib prison, by ginned-up intelligence to justify war, by 652 American deaths since presidential operatives declared "Mission Accomplished," Republican leaders have yet to suggest that George W. Bush be held responsible for the disaster in Iraq and that perhaps he, not just Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is ill-suited for his job.

Having read the report of Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, I expect Baker's question will resound again in another congressional investigation. The equally relevant question is whether Republicans will, Pavlov-like, continue to defend their president with ideological and partisan reflex, or remember the example of principled predecessors who pursued truth at another dark moment.

Today, the issue may not be high crimes and misdemeanors, but rather Bush's failure, or inability, to lead competently and honestly.

"You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror," Bush told Rumsfeld in a Wizard-of-Oz moment May 10, as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and senior generals looked on. "You are a strong secretary of Defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude." The scene recalled another Oz moment: Nixon praising his enablers, Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, as "two of the finest public servants I've ever known."

Sidestepping the Constitution

Like Nixon, this president decided the Constitution could be bent on his watch. Terrorism justified it, and Rumsfeld's Pentagon promoted policies making inevitable what happened at Abu Ghraib — and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The legal justification for ignoring the Geneva Conventions regarding humane treatment of prisoners was enunciated in a memo to Bush, dated Jan. 25, 2002, from the White House counsel.

"As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war," Alberto Gonzales wrote Bush. "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." Quaint.

Since January, Bush and Rumsfeld have been aware of credible complaints of systematic torture. In March, Taguba's report reached Rumsfeld. Yet neither Bush nor his Defense secretary expressed concern publicly or leveled with Congress until photographic evidence of an American Gulag, possessed for months by the administration, was broadcast to the world.

Rumsfeld then explained, "You read it, as I say, it's one thing. You see these photographs and it's just unbelievable. ... It wasn't three-dimensional. It wasn't video. It wasn't color. It was quite a different thing." But the report also described atrocities never photographed or taped that were, often, even worse than the pictures — just as Nixon's actions were frequently far worse than his tapes recorded.

It was Barry Goldwater, the revered conservative, who convinced Nixon that he must resign or face certain conviction by the Senate — and perhaps jail. Goldwater delivered his message in person, at the White House, accompanied by Republican congressional leaders.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee likewise put principle above party to cast votes for articles of impeachment. On the eve of his mission, Goldwater told his wife that it might cost him his Senate seat on Election Day. Instead, the courage of Republicans willing to dissociate their party from Nixon helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency six years later, unencumbered by Watergate.

Another precedent is apt: In 1968, a few Democratic senators — J. William Fulbright, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Robert F. Kennedy — challenged their party's torpor and insisted that President Lyndon Johnson be held accountable for his disastrous and disingenuous conduct of the Vietnam War, adding weight to public pressure, which, eventually, forced Johnson not to seek re-election.

Today, the United States is confronted by another ill-considered war, conceived in ideological zeal and pursued with contempt for truth, disregard of history and an arrogant assertion of American power that has stunned and alienated much of the world, including traditional allies. At a juncture in history when the United States needed a president to intelligently and forcefully lead a real international campaign against terrorism and its causes, Bush decided instead to unilaterally declare war on a totalitarian state that never represented a terrorist threat; to claim exemption from international law regarding the treatment of prisoners; to suspend constitutional guarantees even to non-combatants at home and abroad; and to ignore sound military advice from the only member of his Cabinet — Powell — with the most requisite experience. Instead of using America's moral authority to lead a great global cause, Bush squandered it.

In Republican cloakrooms, as in the Oval Office, response to catastrophe these days is more concerned with politics and PR than principle. Said Tom DeLay, House majority leader: "A full-fledged congressional investigation — that's like saying we need an investigation every time there's police brutality on the street."

When politics topples principles

To curtail any hint of dissension in the ranks, Bush scheduled a "pep rally" with congressional Republicans — speaking 35 minutes, after which, characteristically, he took no questions and lawmakers dutifully circled the wagons.

What did George W. Bush know and when did he know it? Another wartime president, Harry Truman, observed that the buck stops at the president's desk, not the Pentagon.

But among Republicans today, there seems to be scant interest in asking tough questions — or honoring the example of courageous leaders of Congress who, not long ago, stepped forward, setting principle before party, to hold accountable presidents who put their country in peril.

Carl Bernstein's most recent book is a biography of John Paul II, His Holiness. He is co-author, with Bob Woodward, of All the President's Men and The Final Days."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-05-23-bush-edit_x.htm

 

Gee, I'm surprised that the most ardent defender of George Bush hasn't shown up on this thread yet! Perhaps Mav is under the weather or something today. Usually, whenever somone threatens our beloved leader here in cyberspace, an alarm goes off and Mav comes to the rescue!

In the meantime, I find it quite ironic that Mav puts George Bush right up there with the likes of Ronald Reagan as far as our countries greatest leaders are concerned, yet he stated only yesterday ( and I quote ):

"I also went on record saying that the only thing I like about the Bush administration is his foreign policy directive. I am 100% in support of him on the war on terrorism and in Iraq and that is my primary reason for supporting Bush. I have never ever made the statement on ET that I was proud of anything else Bush has done outside foreign policy."

Now that we have Mav on record as stating that the only thing that he has supported Bush on is his war on terrorism and foreign policy in Iraq, I wonder just what was the evidence that Mav believed in was the basis for the grounds to invade Iraq???

Was it the aluminum tubes that the Department of Energy laughed at as alleged evidence of WMD?

Was it the forged reports of Uranium sales between the country of Niger and Iraq?

Or was it the British intelligence dossier that was a plagiarized report from a grad student on Iraq, circa 1991 that Secretary Colin Powell held up so lavishly to the United Nations back in March of 2003?

Or was it the intelligence that VP Cheney and CIA director Tenet were getting from our good friend Ahmed Chalabi? You know the guy I'm talking about. The guy that was on our countries payroll to the tune of $340,000 per month and told Iranian intelligence that we had broken Iran's secret communications code?

Please feel free to tell us just which piece of evidence justified President Bush's invasion of Iraq based on the belief that Iraq posed an "imminent" threat?

Since you are 100% in support of Bush's foreign policy with regards to Iraq, this should not be a very difficult question for you to answer. Please answer the question. Besides, I'm sure that I am not the only one that is curious to learn your answer.

 

Not to forget that in addition to the above lies Bush, the most cowardly and deceitful liar to ever have been US president, and who poses the biggest threat in the world to peace, stability, democracy, freedom, civil liberties and judicial due process, in short everything America stood for before he and his NeoCons stole this country, and who is the biggest promoter of international terror, has used up to 27 !!! different lies for the extremely counter-productive Iraq war that has only served to grow terror on an exponential scale, see the study below the war lie quotes:

8/26/02 Cheney: Simply stated,
there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein
now has weapons of mass destruction.
There is no doubt he is amassing them
to use against our friends, against our
allies, and against us.
(Remarks to VFW, 8/26/03).

9/02 Rumsfeld: Rumsfeld told Congress
that Saddam’s
"regime has amassed large,
clandestine stockpiles of
chemical weapons, including
VX, sarin, cyclosarin
and mustard gas…” (U.S. News 6/03).

9/19/2002 Rumsfeld: There are a number
of terrorist states pursuing weapons
of mass destruction -- Iran, Libya,
North Korea, Syria, just to name
but a few. But no terrorist state
poses a greater or more immediate
threat to the security of our people
than the regime of Saddam Hussein in
Iraq. (Senate Armed Services
Committee Hearing Transcript, 9/19/2002)

1/28/03 Bush: “The British government
has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities
of uranium from Africa.”
(The State of the Union Address, 1/28/03)

2/05/03 Powell: “Our conservative
estimate is that Iraq today has a
stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons
of chemical weapons agent. That is enough
agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.” (Remarks, U.N., 2/05/03)


2/08/03 Bush: "We have sources that tell
us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized
Iraqi field commanders to use chemical
weapons -- the very weapons the dictator
tells us he does not have." (Radio Address, 2/08/03)

3/16/03 Cheney: “We believe [Saddam] has,
in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
(The Washington Post, 5/20/03)

3/17/03 Bush: "Intelligence gathered by
this and other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues
to possess and conceal some of
the most lethal weapons ever devised."
(Address, D.C., 3/17/03)

3/30/03 Rumsfeld: "We know where they are.
They're in the area around Tikrit and
Baghdad and east, west, south and north
somewhat." (Remarks, ABC, 3/30/03)

10/06/02 Bush: Saddam Hussein could
strike without notice and inflict
"massive and sudden horror" on
America. (AP, 10/6/02)





"Bush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says

Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
217-333-2177; andreal@uiuc.edu

5/10/04

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.

The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In addition to what it says about the shifting sands of rationales and the unsteady path to war in Iraq, what is remarkable about the 212-page study is that its author is a student.

The study, “Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002,” is the senior honors thesis of Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study is the first of its kind.

For her analysis of all available public statements the Bush administration and selected members of Congress made pertaining to war with Iraq, Largio not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration’s shift in interest from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media’s response to that shift.

“The rationales that were used to justify the war with Iraq have been a major issue in the news since last year, and Devon’s study provides an especially thorough and wide-ranging analysis of it,” Althaus, a professor of political science, said.

“It is not the last word on the subject, but I believe it is the first to document systematically the case that the administration made for going to war during critical periods of the public debate.

“It is first-rate research,” Althaus said, “the best senior thesis I have ever seen – thoroughly documented and elaborately detailed. Her methodology is first-rate.”

Largio mapped the road to war over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq.

She drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and stories.

The rationales Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners – war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s “because Saddam Hussein hates us,” Colin Powell’s “because it’s a violation of international law,” and Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.”

With regard to the administration’s shift from bin Laden to Saddam, Largio found that Iraq was “part of the plan for the war on terror early in the game.”

For example, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, President Bush declared that Iraq was part of the war against terrorism because it supported terrorists and continued to “flaunt its hostility toward America.” He also claimed that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors into the country and then threw them out, “fueling the belief that the nation did in fact plan to develop weapons of mass destruction,” Largio wrote.

In the same speech, the president called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil,” a phrase that would “ignite much criticism” and add “to the sense that the U.S. would embark on a war with the Hussein state,” Largio wrote.

“So, from February of 2002 on,” Largio said, “Iraq gets more hits than Osama bin Laden. For President Bush the switch occurs there and the gap grows over time.”

The media “seemed to offer a lot of opinion and speculation, as there had been no formal indication that Iraq would be a target in the war on terror,” Largio wrote. Oddly, though, the media didn’t switch its focus to Iraq and Saddam until July of 2002.

Yet, “Overall, the media was in tune with the major arguments of the administration and Congress, but not with every detail that emerged from the official sources.”

“As always, hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Largio wrote in the conclusion to her thesis. “However, there are questions surrounding nearly every major rationale for the war.

“People may wonder, why are our men and women over there? Why did we go to war? Were we misled? In this election year, these questions deserve answers. And though this paper cannot answer these questions definitively, it can provide some insight into the thinking of the powers-that-be during the earliest stages of war preparation and give the American people a chance to answer these questions for themselves.”

Because Largio’s thesis addresses questions of “great public importance,” Althaus said, and “does so in such a detailed manner,” he arranged to have it posted on a public Web site. Largio will graduate on May 16, and will attend law school at Vanderbilt University.
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/0510war.html

 

Bush has bewitched this nation.

Americans need a Savior to save them from their sinful ways.

Bush promises to do this.

That is why he is not impeached yet.

Americans are a bunch of sorry losers trusting in Bush instead of the Lord.

c

 

I think a majority of Americans have finally woken up out of their gullible stupor and realized just what kind of psychos Bush and his NeoCon gang really are, and that accordingly come November those guys are on thir way out and hopefully eventually to jail where they belong.

It's taken an incredibly long time compared to every single other civilized country in the world including Britain, Japan or Italy where large majorities of the populations always disbelieved the outrageous lies leading to this counter productive war from the very start all the way up to now, but better late than never, I say.

 

The fact that we had Ahmed Chalabi on the State Department payroll to the tune of $340,000 per month is totally absurd . . . especially given the fact that a company that he has an interest in has already been awarded $400 million in Iraqi reconstruction contracts.

And this guy told the Iranians that we had broken their intelligence code?

And yet no one in the Bush Administration is accountable for this.
No one steps up to the plate and says that the buck stops here!

Great.

 

American Caligula
Posted May 28, 2004 thepeoplesvoice.org

By: Raymond Ponziny

"Let them hate so long as they fear." - Roman emperor, Caligula

Caligula, the schizophrenic by-product of an influential Roman family grew up in a wealthy decadent world steeped in generations of treachery and political intrigue. Considered the most morally and ethically corrupt emperor ever to rule the great Roman empire 37-41 A.D. Caligula will always be distinguished in the collective memory of humanity as a murderous monster. History records an individual consumed by his lust for power and a need to satisfy aberrant sexual desires. Caligula took sadistic pleasure in exercising his judgment of life and death over other human beings, executing them slowly whenever possible. He was a powerful and dangerous psychotic with a below average intellect who believed himself to be in communication with the gods, even demanding that he be worshipped as a god. In 39 A.D. Caligula revived the Tiberius treason trials and people suspected of disloyalty were executed or driven to suicide. During his 4-year reign of terror Rome sank quickly into economic disrepair. Caligula's despotic rule ended when the Praetorians stabbed him to death as he left a theater. Since that time 1967 years ago there has not been another political leader of such perverse and incompetent stature to attain control over an empire equal to 37 A.D. Rome, that is, not until now.

“We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth ...” - George W. Bush

George W. Bush, the schizophrenic by-product of an influential American family grew up in a wealthy decadent world steeped in generations of treachery and political intrigue. Considered the most morally and ethically bankrupt President ever to rule the great American empire, Bush will be distinguished prominently in the collective memory of humanity as a greedy and corrupt war monger and war profiteer. For the innocent men women and children on the receiving end of his cluster bombs and uranium-238 weapons he is thought of as a mass murderer and a war criminal. History records the behavior of a predatory sociopath, utterly lacking in empathy, concerned only with power and the satisfaction of his dark desires. He seems oblivious to the human and environmental costs of his regime, and unconcerned with the immense suffering they are causing on the planet.

Bush is a powerful and dangerous psychotic with a below average intellect who believes himself to be in communication with god, stating: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did". Bush has instituted Military tribunals, drumhead trials, and executions, taking the position that people captured by his regime are no longer entitled to either the rights afforded prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, or to those covering criminal defendants within the US courts. This violation of constitutional and civil rights is no great leap for a man who himself has allegedly used the FBI to drive his enemies to suicide. During Bush's despotic reign and endless terror war, America is sinking into economic disrepair. People are saying if Bush and his gang steal another election it will mean the end of democracy and the end of the American way of life. Others say it will mean the end of the middle class and the beginning of a two class society of rich and poor. And there are those who believe that what we are now witnessing is the emergence of a fascist corporate police state with aspirations of world domination.

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky said, "If we are to win, it's clear we need to do more, do it louder, do it faster and do it better. And if we don't, in 2008 we will live in a country and a world far different from the one we have had and the one to which we aspire. This President is seriously undermining the rule of law, the Constitution of the United States, and precious civil liberties and doing it all in the name of patriotism." Helen Thomas called George W. Bush, "the worst president ever." Jonathan Chait ranks him "among the worst presidents in US history." Paul Berman labels him, "the worst president the US has ever had", and George A. Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics said, "This is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy, this is a form of looting." Lt. Cmdr. Al Martin, US Navy, (Ret) said, "You have to look at the entire Bush Family in this context - as if the family ran a corporation called ‘Frauds-R-Us,’ George Jr.’s specialty was insurance and security fraud, Jeb’s specialty was oil and gas fraud, Neil’s specialty was real estate fraud, Prescott’s specialty was banking fraud, and George Sr.’s specialty? All of the above." Christopher Hitchens, Washington Editor for Harpers and columnist for The Nation said, “George Bush, he’s bad on drugs, he’s sick mentally and physically, if he was a dog he’d be shot. He’s a scumbag. That’s why he won’t be re-elected. He’s not morally, physically or mentally fit to be President.”

Many have noted that Bush exhibits a strange fascination with death, and like Caligula, he seems to enjoy executing people. As a boy George W. Bush had fun sticking firecrackers into frogs and blowing them up and shooting them with a BB gun. His youthful Cruelty to animals was a mere precursor to his later adult cruelty to human beings. As Governor of Texas, George W. Bush was known as the ‘Texecutioner’ setting a record in all fifty states with 152 executions, the most people ever killed by a Governor. During an interview with Talk magazine, he exhibited what could be characterized as sadistic tendencies. Writer, Tucker Carlson described Bush mimicking Karla Fay Tucker’s final pleas for her life, "Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me." Of course her execution proceeded. Again during the 2000 presidential debates when he spoke of executing people, an odd change came over him. "The three men who murdered James Byrd, guess what's going to happen to them?” Bush paused and grinned at the camera... “They're going to be put to death,” he proclaimed with satisfaction.

As president of the United States George W. Bush is barely functional having held only nine carefully scripted press conferences as compared with Bill Clinton’s thirty-three ‘real’ press conferences by the same time in office. Bush often demonstrates serious lapses in judgment with his many Bhopals like, "As you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say." and, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." When the full extent of Bush’s horrific actions in America and the world are realized he will not be remembered as a liberator or a patriot, but as a fourth generation war profiteer, a corrupt liar who started a ‘privatized’ war for oil which killed thousands of innocent men women and children.

 

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Wolfowitz, and Bush Sr. do not represent the American people, but a small circle of corporations and military industrialists concerned only with the accumulation of power and wealth at any cost. George Jr. the willing puppet and participant in the scheme is not only motivated by greed, but some very strange sexual needs as well. Certainly if there is any truth to the information on the internet concerning rape, and homosexuality, he is far from being the 'good Christian man' portrayed by the corporate media. Strip away the tissue thin veneer, which his handlers have worked so very hard to create and we see that Bush, like Caligula, was also a tragically corrupt and incompetent sexual predator, and during his reign of ‘terror’ America is sinking quickly toward its economic demise.

Though He was born into a life of wealth and privilege Bush’s introduction into the super secret super decadent society of the ruling rich and his first alleged homosexual experiences probably began in 1968 while he was a student at Yale University. In her book 'Secrets of the Tomb---Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power,’ Alexandra Robbins describes how Skull & Bones initiates were selected from American aristocracy to be pushed to the heights of power in a globalist empire. Initiates took part in satanic rituals in a windowless building at Yale University, known as ‘The Tomb’. As part of the initiation ritual, new members engaged in homosexual acts in a coffin while divulging secrets about their sex lives and other personal information. From that day forward the acts committed by the initiate and their confession were used as a means of control, and it formed a dark bond among the inner circle members of the Skull & Bones Order.

Legal activist Sherman Skolnick, Chairman of the Citizens' Committee to Clean up the Courts, reported that suppressed stories and photos are being used by various nations to blackmail the Bush administration. One picture allegedly shows George W. Bush in the Skull & Bones Society satanic ritual coffin engaging in homosexual acts with his reputed male sex-mate. Another photo reveals a drunken George W. Bush dancing naked on top of a tavern bar. According to Mr. Skolnick The reputed Bush male sex-mate details have seriously compromised the Bush regime, enabling other countries to obtain U.S. industrial, financial, and military secrets in return for media silence. Reporters with the British Broadcasting Company, BBC, and Canadian Broadcasting Company, CBC, have on their own verified and corroborated the information uncovered by Mr. Skolnick. In an attempt to silence the story the FBI and Justice Department are using all means necessary to spy on both foreign and domestic reporters and forcibly stop the publishing and electronic transmission of any stories or pictures relating to George W. Bush in a Skull & Bones Society satanic ritual coffin engaging in homosexual acts.

Years After Skull and bones, and the Harken Energy Corp dealings, and the stadium built with taxpayer money, and his selection in the1994 Texas Governors race, we get another glimpse of George W. Bush’s Caligula like world. On October 26, 2000 the attempted abduction of pretty young married black 37 year old Margie Schoedinger took place at her residence. It was one of many nights of endless unspeakable torment that Mrs. Schoedinger and her husband had endured, but on this particular evening, in a cry for help she resisted her abductors. When the Texas Sugar land police arrived they treated the three intruders with deference and respect. No incident report was taken and the three men were allowed to leave while Mrs. Schoedinger was questioned at length.

Margie Schoedinger’ had once dated George W. Bush when she was a minor, and this had been her unfortunate connection to him. According to her Petition, George Jr. had her watched continuously and frequently used her for aberrant sex. After filing a lawsuit against Bush and the FBI on October 26, 2000, the harassment by law enforcement of Mrs. Schoedinger’s family and friends became intolerable. Fearfully she withdrew the suit, but the harassment continued. Out of desperation Mrs. Schoedinger wrote letters to the FBI begging them for help, but her pleas were only passed along to Bush.

In a subsequent conversation Mrs. Schoedinger had with Bush and people from his gang she was told that the harassment by the FBI and local police would continue and that her only way out would be to commit suicide, which Bush recommended. He informed Mrs. Schoedinger that her entire background had been destroyed. She would never have a clean credit record again, her husband would never be able to find work again, Her Graduate Degree had been revoked and any degree she might earn in the future would be revoked.

They told her that: she would be placed on an AIDs watch list for the rest of her life, she would be watched by the CIA, and harassed by the Secret Service. They said she would be placed on the National Security Agency’s Photo Array to be considered as a possible suspect in any crime, and they said her home was under constant surveillance and the images would be put on the internet and made available to prison web sites, military web sites, and any internet location that could possibly cause her to be harmed.

Mrs. Schoedinger begged Bush to have mercy and let her pursue a degree and start her life over. Desperately she tried to assure him that she would never mention his name again and that nobody would believe her even if she did. She soon got his answer, her bank account was expunged, her husband dismissed from his job, and she was again raped and savagely beaten resulting in a miscarriage. Upon her arrival at the hospital FBI agents were waiting with more threats and intimidation. Mrs. Schoedinger left the hospital prematurely with no certainty that doctors had collected the pathology of her dead child.

In an ominous final conversation Mrs. Schoedinger had with Bush, he took full responsibility for the actions being carried out against her. She was told again that committing suicide would be her best option, and it was his opinion that she was essentially dead anyway. Although Mrs. Schoedinger and her husband had been drugged each time she had been gang raped, Bush revealed that he and the FBI agents were very concerned that she might actually remember the individual sex crimes that they had committed against her.

On Monday September 22, 2003, nine months after Margie Schoedinger filed case, #19631, against George W. Bush in the County Civil Court of Fort Bend County, Texas, for both physical and punitive damages, she was found dead in her home of a "gunshot wound to head". 38 year old Margie D. Schoedinger had died of an apparent "suicide", according to the Harris County Medical Examiner's office, but those familiar with CIA / Mafia lingo know that "suicide" also means "murder."

 

Apprehension and Frustration
Neo-Cons on the Brink
By WAYNE MADSEN

Having just hit the half-century mark age wise, I can't remember a time when Americans were more apprehensive and frustrated than they are today. Sure, there was Watergate. But thanks to our then working system of checks and balances, the American political system righted itself and did not capsize as some doomsayers predicted. After Richard Nixon's resignation, the newly-sworn in President, Gerald Ford, said America's national nightmare was over. Unlike 1974, 2004's nightmare _ called the George W. Bush administration _ shows no signs of abatement. And for that reason, a majority of Americans with IQs representing a semblance of education are growing increasingly restless. How and when this simmering boil among Americans will overflow is anyone's guess but the consequences may shock advertising sponsored political pundits, corporate newspaper editors, and bought-and-paid for pollsters.

From the halls of the Pentagon to the State Department, the offices of constitutional lawyers to political insiders, and the analytical shops of the Central Intelligence Agency to the Defense Intelligence Agency, people have had it with the ideologues (neo conservatives, evangelical dominionists, Christian Zionists, reactionary Catholics, expansionistic Israel Firsters, creative destructionists, Moonies, apocalyptic fundamentalists, and plain old fascists and assorted other kooks) who have nested and reproduced within the three branches of our Federal government. The growing restlessness in America now crosses political party lines, age, racial, and ethnic groups, religious affiliations, and income brackets.

Every day brings a new outrage to those of us who realize that the future of America hangs in the balance. John Kerry should be reaping a whirlwind of support from those angered and disgusted at every syllabic-challenged utterance from the current occupant of the White House. But Kerry's support is lukewarm, even among committed Democrats. The reason is simple _ all those who have ranted and raved over the years about the influence of special interests in controlling American foreign and domestic policy have been right on the money all along. The fact that Kerry is part of the nexus of filthy-rich special interests and policy making results in many of his prospective voters saying they will be voting against Bush and not necessarily for Kerry.

Kerry's reluctance to besmirch or even talk about Yale's Skull and Bones crypto-Masonic and jingoistic fraternity (of which he is a member) add to the apprehension of many Americans. But Bush still stirs an angry bile across the land. Recent news that he has one of Saddam Hussein's favorite pistols in a room adjacent to the Oval Office should be no surprise. Bush likes to show the gun off to his visitors. After all, the Skull and Bonesmen regale themselves in objects looted from battlefields and graves. In their fraternity house at Yale, affectionately called "The Tomb," the Bonesmen are surrounded by Hitler's silverware, Nazi war booty (including swastika iconography), Apache Chief Geronimo's skull (allegedly grave robbed from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, by George Dubya's grandfather, Bonesman Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut), and the skulls of Pancho Villa, President Martin van Buren (what did he ever do to piss off the Bushes?), and abolitionist leader John Brown. And it should come as no surprise that nine members of a wealthy New England blue blood family, the Cheneys, who made their wealth in the Chinese silk trade, were Skull and Bonesmen. One branch of that family made its way to Nebraska with one of their progeny, Richard Brice Cheney, eventually moving to Wyoming where he launched the Cheney family's move back into political power.

If Kerry wanted to reassure us that his administration will be radically different from the Bush-Cheney junta, he should immediately resign from the Skull and Bones, denounce their sordid agenda and rituals, and demand that human remains robbed from graves be returned to their proper burial places. We can understand why George W. Bush likes the death cult aspects of this gruesome and morose society of wealthy snot-nosed rich kids but there is no reason for Kerry to honor whatever goofy pledges he made to these ghouls when he was initiated by them.

Between the Yalie death cultists, Christian evangelical end timers, neo-conservative global hegemonists, and those with IQs lower than George W. Bush (91), the rest of us (the good news is that we are still a majority), including a number with one or more stars on their military uniforms, are becoming irritated to the point where something is going to break. Some quotes recently picked up from two and three-star generals and bird colonels: "I took an oath to the Constitution, not Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld;" "If the Pentagon were being overrun by the enemy and I had one bullet left, I'd use it on Stephen Cambone" (the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence); "Too bad they missed Wolfowitz!" (a reference to the October 2003 Iraqi insurgent bombing of the Al Rashid hotel in Baghdad where Wolfowitz was staying). And this from a National Guard Colonel, "The Governors are ready to revolt if any more of their Guardsmen are sent to Iraq."

If Bush, Cheney, and Rove interfere with the election process, either by postponing the November 2 election because of an unspecified "terrorist" threat or other concocted reason, many in the senior levels of the military are prepared to honor their oath to the Constitution and protect our nation from enemies "domestic." That includes presidents and their staff who want to overturn the Constitution process for their own nefarious purposes.

 

A long time colleague, a well-known constitutional lawyer, told me that he would support the military taking such unprecedented action against an out-of-control executive branch. A seasoned Washington political observer, well known to television audiences, echoed the lawyer's sentiment _ he even called for military trials of Bush, Cheney, and their henchmen after their ouster. Yes, the outrage factor is at an all time fever pitch. In my lifetime, I've seen nothing like it. Yet, it is wholly understandable. Every day the Bush regime outrages us and the world, the gulf widens between the reasoned masses and the perception managers and ideologues who surround the pathetic one in the White House.

Al Gore (the man who should rightly be president) has certainly had enough. He let Bush have it in a recent speech in New York City. The whining right-wingers who back Bush cried foul. To those who think Kerry is "Bush-Lite," Gore's words were a health tonic. Gore said Bush, like Fautus, sold his soul in return for global domination. It's not known if Gore, a Harvard man, has read up on Yale's Skull and Bones, but such a comparison has much merit. Gore wowed the audience with a call for the resignation of Bush's national security and defense team: the whole shebang of neo-cons and incompetents: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Cambone, Condoleezza Rice. As Howard Dean would say, "Yee Haw!"

If the military does have to purge the Executive Branch of nut cases and les démagogues très dangereux, they will find support from Gore, who somehow wound up on a "check baggage" alert list at Reagan National Airport when he was boarding a flight to Wisconsin. Candidates for the Green Party and the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate have been similarly placed on passenger watch lists in what has become a Soviet-style system of internal travel controls and checkpoints. Across the political spectrum, people want their Constitution protected and if the military steps up to the plate, they will have widespread support.

So enough of this regime of fascists and suicidal Christian cultists. If the Bush junta and their panty-waste supporters want to take this battle into the streets they will find patriotic constitutionalist Americans up to the task. We have most of the military brass on our side and the real military veterans who have faced diminishing benefits under Bush (not that flotsam and jetsam of society that ride into Washington on Harleys every Memorial Day weekend and claim they have some God-given right to speak for veterans even if they do get a guided tour of the White House from the moron-in-chief in return for their meaningless political endorsement).

The neo-cons appear to be sensing that the tide is turning against them. Their archangel, Richard Perle, recently complained that a gaggle of former intelligence officers helped bring down his friend, the Iraqi conman Ahmad Chalabi, by publishing defamatory stories about him. Hey, Richard, I plead guilty! But we won't stop with Chalabi. Former and current intelligence officers, retired and active duty military officers, and all those who want to see sanity return to American foreign policy won't stop until we see you and your duplicitous friends _ Michael Ledeen, Elliot Abrams, Manucher Ghorbanifar, and the other Iran-contra alumni -- similarly exposed as agents of influence who gladly walk the line between the Israelis and Iranians and eke as much out of both as possible. Dan Senor, the Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman, not only worked for the criminal Carlyle Group, but his association with a company that seeks to accelerate Israeli technology infusion into the U.S. defense and homeland security markets, deserves special condemnation and continued scrutiny once he folds up his Baghdad tent and moves back to the United States.

The frustration of Americans is matched by that of the people of Iraq, Britain, Haiti, Italy, Australia, and other nations that have come under the control of Bush's minions. The recent elections that threw out right-wing allies of Bush in Spain, South Korea, and India should serve as a stark warning to the neo-cons. Your time is also coming. Some members of the recently-dissolved Iraqi Governing Council, like the U.S. military, are in open revolt against the neo-cons. Tony Blair and Australia's John Howard are on the political ropes. Italy's neo-fascist Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi digs himself deeper into political and legal troubles.

The neo-cons, the swaggering Bush hegemonists, and their off-base "End Times" religious allies must be ejected from the American body politic. They did more to destroy this country's constitutional fabric than any recent past conspiratorial group _ including the Communist Party, Weathermen, Freemen, or Ku Klux Klan. None of them ever gained control of the White House and Pentagon.

Let John Kerry begin the process of cleansing America of this ilk by resigning from and denouncing the Skull and Bones. Pass a Federal law requiring them to return human remains to proper burial places and stolen war booty to their rightful owners (in the case of Hitler's silverware, that would be the U.S. Government). The moron-in-chief should turn Saddam's pistol over to the new Iraqi government's archives.

If our military leaders decide to honor their oath to the Constitution, let those of us who would normally find abhorrent a Seven Days in May scenario, welcome their action. If retired Generals Anthony Zinni and Joseph Hoar are any indication, our military leaders have more of an appreciation for our way of life and traditions than the "selected" occupants of the Executive Branch. Our military leadership may be the only power in the land that can challenge those who seek to destroy the United States, if not the entire world.


Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates."